All posts tagged Simon Burke

As John Lovering and the new board of Mitchells & Butlers settle into defining the future strategy of the U.K.’s largest managed pub group, they do so in the knowledge that any failure to please the group’s two largest shareholders could mean their time is short.

Piedmont and Elpida–who own a combined 40% of M&B–were both insistent the new board was truly independent and would in no way be controlled by them.

This, despite the fact that five of the eight directors owe their presence on the board to the two investment companies. The five, including Jeremy Blood, Simon Balfour and Simon Burke, in addition to Lovering , were nominated directly by Piedmont, tycoon Joe Lewis’s investment vehicle and backed by Elpida, J.P. McManus and John Magnier’s company.

“The new board should be free to do what it wants,” said Elpida’s Ed Banks Thursday, “we don’t want to manage it, we’d rather be less active as a shareholder.”